236,000 runoff voters last week, and 2 million clicks on AJ and Katherine Webb's wedding. Time for the apocalypse, or online voting?

AL.com Opinion

About the writerJohn Archibald is a columnist for the Alabama Media Group. His work appears in the newspaper on Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and online at AL.com all the time. Reach him at jarchibald@al.com.

Some 236,000 people voted in last week's primary runoff elections, in races that in some cases effectively decided who will run this state.

It comes out to about 8 percent of registered voters -- 6 percent of Alabama's adult population -- deciding the future.

And it could have been worse.

The secretary of state's office even sent out a press release to that effect. The headline read: "Secretary of State (Jim) Bennett Says Turnout Higher than Predicted."

Think about that.

In races in which politicians reported spending more than $7.5 million between the June 3 primary and the runoff, eight voters out of every hundred made the choice. And that was "higher than predicted."

It's like four guys in a band of 50, making the rules. Like two folks in a class of 25 deciding who gets to be student body president. It's like one guy in a dozen deciding what the others get to do.

Sure, traditionalists want to go to the polls and see a volunteer scratch through their names. They want to vote with a pencil or a button and slap an "I voted" sticker on their chest. Let them vote that way.

But it is not the only way. If we can pay taxes by computer, why can't we allow online voting?

Spotify has more than 10 million paying digital subscribers these days, and Amazon boasts about 80 million customers a month. We bank on the internet, literally and figuratively. We use it to buy concert tickets and clothes, to pay bills and taxes and to buy car tags. According to the Pew Research Center, 9 percent of adults – a bigger chunk than voted in Alabama last week – have tried to find a mate with an internet dating site.

I know there are potential dangers to online voting. Computer wizards tell us there's no way to guarantee security and privacy. There are too many hackers, too many hazards.

But there are hazards to hanging chads, too. And to dead people voting in the Black Belt. There have been hazards to fair voting across Alabama for more than a century.

But if we trust the internet with our money, why not our vote?

We could, if we really wanted democracy to be more democratic. We could, if the powers that be – meaning that powers that want to remain in power – wanted to make voting more accessible, to encourage voting rather than simply allowing it.

And that doesn't just apply to online voting. If Alabama really wanted to increase voter turnout it would look at weekend voting, or making Election Day a holiday in and of itself. If we really wanted to boost turnout we'd dump all those districts gerrymandered by politics, for they only discourage participation.

But alas, Alabama has never been a place that really wanted to increase voter turnout.

Alabama is a place that used to deny the right to vote to "all idiots and insane persons," which is hard now to imagine. It is a place that denied the right to vote to black people and to women and to people "living in adultery."

Alabama has never really wanted to make voting easy.

It is time to get with the times. Or at least to think about it.

John Archibald is a columnist with Alabama Media Group. Email him at jarchibald@al.com